Women in IT Awards Silicon Valley 2018 — finalists revealed for inaugural awards

The Women in IT Awards Series today reveals the finalists for its first award programme in San Francisco, USA — the tech world’s hub. More than 400 business and technology leaders will descend on The Fairmont Hotel 29 November 2018.

The awards programme, organised by Information Age in association with Equinix, is the leading initiative among extensive efforts from the tech world to rectify a gender imbalance that means women occupy just 25% of tech roles in the US — a steady decline from 35% over the last 15 years.

The Women in IT Awards Silicon Valley is part of the Women in IT Awards Series, which has further events in Ireland, London, New York and Singapore.

Women in IT Awards 2018 – winners revealed

1,200 business and technology leaders gathered at the world’s largest tech diversity event in London last night as award winners were crowned across 19 categories. Read here

The Series is an ongoing Information Age campaign to tackle technology’s diversity problems. Information Age runs two further diversity events in the UK: Tomorrow’s Tech Leaders, a careers fair for female university students, and Future Stars of Tech, which identifies and promotes the industry’s top female career climbers.

Through a series of 17 awards, the Women in IT Awards Silicon Valley will showcase the achievements and innovation of women in technology and identify new role models for the younger generation of female talent.

Joining headline sponsor, Equinix, at the Women in IT Awards Silicon Valley 2018 are BMC Software — as premium sponsor — Airbnb, Belvedere Communications, FireEye, Forescout, Google Cloud, Intel, Nutanix, and Women to Watch.

This year’s awards attracted over 500 nominations, which for the inaugural event is remarkable.

“Following the fourth awards programme of the Women in IT Awards London earlier this year, it was clear that Information Age and our partners needed to reach out beyond the UK. The problem of diversity in technology is not limited to this country,” said Nick Ismail, Content Editor, Information Age.

“We followed that up with our inaugural US event in New York, and today I am delighted to announce the finalists of our first diversity event in Silicon Valley — the heart of the world’s technology innovation. This was reflected in the quality of nominations this year. This follows the announcement of the shortlist for the inaugural Women in IT Awards Ireland 2018.”

“All of the finalists deserve a huge congratulations for being shortlisted for an award at this year’s event. We can’t wait to welcome everyone for one of the biggest nights in technology on 29 November.”

Click here to book your place at the Women in IT Awards 2018 in London, and here to view the winners of this year’s Women in IT Awards London.

Women in IT Awards USA – winners revealed

550 business and technology leaders gathered at the inaugural Women in IT Awards at New York’s Gotham Hall as award winners were crowned across 16 categories. Read here

Women in IT Awards Silicon Valley — 2018 finalists

Advocate of the Year

Anika Balkan, Salesforce
Pratima (Roa) Gluckman, VMware
Intel IT, Intel Corporation
Joshua Krammes, StackPath
Lara Kristina, Uber
Sandra Lopez, Intel Corporation
Herman Radtke, Nordstromrack.com | Hautelook
Aarthi Raju, Amazon Web Services
Faye Sahai, Exponential Talent/ UCSF Medical Center
Mercedes Soria, Knightscope, Inc
Niharika Srivastav, Women in Technology International
Kathryn Ullrich, Odgers Berndtson
Tracey Wilen, traceyWilen.com

Business Leader of the Year

Claire Alexandra, Capterra
Alyson Crafton, Intel Corporation
Cassie Divine, Intuit
Monica Eaton-Cardone, Chargebacks911
Stephanie Fohn, Rundeck
Priya Iyer, Vee24
Sandra Joyce, FireEye
Hannah Kain, ALOM
Myra Nawabi, Lockheed Martin
Heather VanCura, Oracle

Business Role Model of the Year

Barbara Bates, Hotwire
Stacey Epstein, Zinc
Brandi Galvin Morandi, Equinix
Rashmi Gopinath, Microsoft Ventures
Tina Huang, Transposit
Lovely Kaur, ShieldX
Minette Norman, Autodesk, Inc
Shannon Sigmon, Lenovo
Marianna Tessel, Intuit
Ricky Trigalo, ControlUp
Amy Warner, Intel Corporation

CIO of the Year

Julie Cullivan, ForeScout
Randi Levin, RSL Technology Associates/ Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuaries
Tammy Moskites, Accenture
Carrie Pedraza, Phoenix American Financial Services
Janet Sherlock, Ralph Lauren
Tressa Springmann, Sailpoint
Paula Tolliver, Intel Corporation

CTO of the Year

Mignona Cote, AIG
Ioana Cozmuta, Flawless Photonics
Isabelle Darolles, Sienza Energy Inc
Alicia Kavelaars, OffWorld
Rathi Murthy, Gap Inc.
Rebecca Parsons, ThoughtWorks
Heather Rivers, Mode Analytics

Data Leader of the Year

Sara Baack, Equinix
Marieke McCloskey, UserTesting
Chao Han, Lucidworks
Joanna Hu, Exabeam
Erin LeDell, H20.ai
Jayodita Sanghvi, Grand Rounds
Rania Succar, Intuit
Mona Ved Tongia, Zenefits
Ronda Yip, FireEye
Anastasia Zamyshlyaeva, Reltio

Digital Leader of the Year

Ana Alessandra, Digital Shadows
Maricel Cabahug, SAP
Rand Nezha – IBM
Rebecca Onchi, Paypal
Reena Tiwari, Symantec Corporation
Heather Williams, Ruckus

Diversity Initiative of the Year

Bev Crair, Lenovo
Julie Cullivan, ForeScout
Kamini Dandapani, LinkedIn
Diane Flynn, ReBoot Accel
Mary Hadley, MakerGirl
Leah McGowen-Hare, Salesforce
Lauren Hasson, DevelopHER
Marisa Lopez, Amplify
Ishita Majumdar, ebay
Cynthia Overton, Inclusion Clearinghouse
Scality’s Technology Education Initiative, Scality

Employer of the Year

Coming soon

Entrepreneur of the Year

Maria Artunduaga, Respira Labs
Pamela Bowen, Eminence MSO
Sharde Brown, Tribe Builder Media
Gloria Chance, The Mousai Group
Dao Jenson, Kaizen Technology Partners LLC
Hillary Sinclair, Wheesearch Beauty
Rebecca Vogels, All of the Above
Jennifer Winward, Winward Academy
Monica Zent, Foxwordy/ZentLaw Group

Future CIO of the Year

Brittney Atilano, Zendesk
Rosh Dawes, Equinix
Priya Karanbelkar, Rightpoint Consulting LLC
Awalin Sopan, FireEye
Cassie Shum, Thoughtworks
Kate Terrell, Salesforce

Innovator of the Year

Chen Admati, Intel Corporation
Julie Fergerson, Ethoca
Pooja Kohli, Blackberry
Vivian Lee, Petcube
Sophia Lopez, Kaleido
Jeanette Lee, Ruckus Networks
Mei Ling, Good2Go Inc
Melissa Massa, Lenovo
Tessa Westbrook, Big Data Federation, Inc

IT Team of the Year

Uma Abhyankar, FireEye
Xochitl Monteon, Intel Corporation
Mona Nyachhyon, LogPoint Nepal
Nicole Oppenhei, FireEye
Rachael Rekart, Autodesk

Rising Star of the Year

Josefina Aguayo, Dev Color
Mary Hadley, MakerGirl
Lasya Marla, Lucidworks
Kristal Murphy, Intel Corporation
Jessica Marie, WhiteHat Security
Aidan Madigan-Curtis, Samsara Inc.
Malika Mission, Workday
Laura Norén, Obsidian Security, Inc
Stephanie Yaung, Roche
Wendy Zamora, Malwarebytes

Security Champion of the Year

Núria Barceló i Peiró, NXP Semiconductors
Marcela Denniston, ShieldX
Suzanne Frey, Google Cloud
Christine Gadsby, BlackBerry
Albertina Hurst Briney (Tina Dorffler), Global Security Lead
Teuta Hyseni, Microsoft
Sarah Katz, ServiceNow
Tammy Moskites, Accenture
Saryu Nayyar, Gurucul
Daria Poehlman, Riscure
Sherry Ryan, Juniper Networks
Leela Rao, Taos
Candace Worley, McAfee

Transformation Leader of the Year

Erin Bergamo, Lenovo
Michelle Bockman, HP Inc
LeAnna Fries, HIMSS NorCal Chapter
Anusha Tirumal Kumar, Micro Focus International Plc
Michelle Killebrew, CA Technologies
Teesee Murray, Infor
April Mills, Intel Corporation
Mona Ved Tongia, Zenefits
Jennifer Steinmann, Deloitte

Woman of the Year

Beena Ammanath, Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Suja Chandrasekaran, Kimberly-Clark Corporation
Libby Fiumara, Digital Shadows
Rashmi Gopinath, Microsoft Ventures
Barbara Hewitt, Texas State University
Vasu Jakkal, FireEye
Roojuta Lalani, Salesforce
Mei Lin Fung, People Centered Internet
Mandy Mock, Intel Corporation
Reena Merchant, Google
Christina Petersen, Salesforce
Paria Rajai, ModelExpand
Jeannie Warner, WhiteHat Security

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Nick Ismail

Nick Ismail is a former editor for Information Age (from 2018 to 2022) before moving on to become Global Head of Brand Journalism at HCLTech. He has a particular interest in smart technologies, AI and...